14 DAY TRIAL // After recently making the rover “stretch” for the first time in six months, experts and engineers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in Pasadena, California, are currently making the last preparations for beginning their attempts at extricating Spirit from its predicament. The robot has been trapped in a patch of loose soil known as Troy for the past few months, and its situation is the worst the battered machine has faced in its five years on Mars. However, mission planners are cautious in showing optimism, saying that the rover's faith hangs by a thread, Space reports.
No one expects that the robot be extracted from its trap easily. In fact, it may take months before this happens. The Martian winter is nearing Spirit's location, so the need is dire for it to be moved to a location where it would benefit from most of the sunshine during the cold days ahead. But the drive out of Troy will not be performed in huge steps, but little by little. Its wheels will turn just a few times, then Spirit will stop and take pictures of the ground around it, relaying the data to its controllers.
This approach is destined to increase the procedure's success rate, and also to ensure that the robot does not go deeper into the sand. “Spirit did the equivalent of falling through the ice over a frozen pond,” the NASA Headquarters Mars Exploration Program Director, Doug McCuistion, from Washington DC, explains. As the rover was cruising over Troy, the crust that covered the talcum powder-like sand below gave way, and Spirit's wheels fell up to their hubcaps in the trap. To make matters even worse, a rock was photographed directly under the craft's underbelly, which means that one false move could see the rover settled on the rock for good.
The JPL rover Project Manager, John Callas, says, “If there is a way to get the rover out, we'll find it.” A new set of drive instructions will be uploaded to the robot's computer on Monday, JPL reveals. Another challenge that recently rose again is the fact that the flash memory on Spirit is acting up. This memory is in charge of storing data that it collected during the day through the period when the exploration robot powers down to save energy. When the memory fails, all data is lost. Therefore, the JPL team needs to manage two very difficult challenges at the same time.
“This is clearly going to be a long process to either get to extrication or determine if extrication is going to work,” JPL rover driver Ashley Stroupe adds. “The reality is that we're going to see very little motion each day at least initially. It's kind of like watching grass grow,” Callas says. “We're in good shape; we're ready to roll on Monday,” he shares.